ROCKET
Laval

2-3

CRUNCH
Syracuse

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Audette – Cracknell – Boucher
Broll – McCarron – Eisenschmid
Leveille – Ebbing – Gregoire
Waked – Blain – Baun[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Gelinas – Leblanc
Parisi – Lernout
Bourque – Petgrave[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
Fucale
Lindgren

Scratches:

Yannick Veilleux (lower body), Matt Taormina (upper body), Chris Terry (day-to-day), Michael McNiven, Niki Petti (lower body), Noah Juulsen (illness)

Injury List:

Jeremiah Addison (shoulder)

Game Report

It was a quick turnaround after the defeat in Utica on Friday night to hit the ice once again on Saturday in Syracuse. Yet again, the Rocket seemed to come out of the gates a bit slowly in the first period, allowing themselves to be outshot 9-5.

Physicality didn’t take long to ramp up, especially after a big hit on Markus Eisenschmid in the corner sent his head careening into the boards. Bleeding profusely from the nose, he went to the bench and stayed in the game, but his teammates quickly came to his defense.

Just two seconds before Laval’s power play was set to expire, the Crunch took advantage of a bad Rocket line change to pot a short-handed goal and get on the board first. Soon after, Syracuse found the back of the net again when they scooped up a rebound and buried the puck past Zach Fucale.

In the middle frame, once again the Rocket found their feet and displayed some of the best hockey they’ve played in a while. They were rewarded for their efforts with a power-play goal by David Broll. They went on to outshoot their opponents in the second and third periods, showing exceptional resilience and determination.

Adam Cracknell evened the score at 2-2 halfway through the third period, and the Laval bench was energized. The Crunch wouldn’t go away, however, and took advantage of some Rocket mistakes to regain the lead and keep the visitors at bay until the final horn.

The team now hopes to ride the momentum from this win into their next two divisional games on the road in Utica and Syracuse.

▲     Chris Leveille, David Broll, Adam Cracknell, Matt Petgrave

▼     Eric Gelinas, Simon Bourque

1. Olivier Archambault  SYR
2. Eddie Pasquale  SYR
3. Adam Cracknell  LAV

Post-game interview with David Broll

Post-game interview with Adam Cracknell

Post-game interview with Matt Petgrave

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

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